Friday, December 17, 2010

Otherwise, fantastic ride today. Somehow, without any conscious effort, I've been 5 weeks off the bike (Barway exempted). With a week of travel and nearly a week of Thanksgiving, I'm amazed how easily the time slipped by.

Even in that short time, I feel everything—mind and body—has reset. I woke up with absolutely no idea why my alarm was going off so early. Yet somehow after the second snooze push, I dragged myself up. Fuelled up with my free $5.75 Ritual coffee (thanks, "Heavy Drinker" card), I was feeling pretty good setting into the rain. Danny and I were the only 6:30 holdouts, so we upgraded to the 6:45. We were by no means pushing it today. Definitely on the relaxed/slow end of Style II. We had a few rain/cross bikes in the mix, and everyone was chill. Still, by the time we hit Gateway, I was really feeling it... heart rate up, legs unhappy. We took SFO easy, and I got my second wind after that, and from Airport all the way to the Wailing Wall, I was fine. We'd even picked up some South Bay stranger named Julian by then... :)

Then, thinking my body had finally come to its senses, I tried for a pull on the Sun Sprint. Eh... not so much. Lasted about 10 seconds and fell back off the pack, utterly unable to sustain the required measly 21mph for even a second.

So, it looks like I have a good bit more riding to get in before I'm back to speed, ... a few weeks off really sets you back. But damn does it feel really really (really!) good to be back on a bike after a break! SF2G how I've missed you!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

First off - never mock a fellow cyclist, I gave Lina some shit yesterday and flatted twice today, suffering added humiliation that the first was because I had patched a tube with a "Lame Ass Patch"(Tm) and the second because I failed to follow my advice to myself to "THROW THIS TUBE AWAY" and put a tube with an undiscovered slow leak into my saddlebag, thus having to stop twice to add air just to get to a bike shop.

Doing Joe Gross Monday I was thinking "There has to be a better way". There is (IMHO, YMMV). I did a little recon yesterday on the way to a train station, and today since Theo bagged but Bret didn't, we decided to try it out. First, we took San Jose/Alemany which I very much prefer to Mission. San Jose has a bit of a freaky factor but not too bad, Alemany has a bike lane and great pavement compared to Mission. In theory you can switch from Mission to Alemany post San Jose.

We then took Hillside headed toward the hustle but took a right on Lawndale, left on Mission, and then just past the BART station we got onto the Centennial Bike Path. Joe Gross is basically 200 yards West of this bike path the whole route, on El Camino. To be fair to Joe, when he made the route, the path didn't exist. It dumps you off onto Huntington at San Bruno BART, Huntington is actually a pretty good road. Then you kind of wind around in a neighborhood, crossing the tracks twice (once on a pedestrian crossing on a path) and then under them and down a street that supposedly has no outlet but for bikes you go through some poles into the Millbrae BART lot, then onto Rollins which is very comfy. Right on Broadway takes you to Carolan where you re-intersect with Joe Gross. We were spelunking a bit but I think it will end up roughly the same time as Joe Gross but it's a lot more pleasant.

Carolan to right on Oak Grove, left on El Camino, right on Occidental. It looks like we can avoid El Camino here as well and still get on Occidental. We then took a very bucolic route through Burlingame and Hillsborough subdivisions. So far the ride has been pretty flat outside of the slow rise up Alemany and one tiny bump in the Hillsborough section. Left on Crystal Springs, Right on Alameda De Las Pulgas - Avenue of the Fleas (thus "Fleaway"). That's when it gets fun.

Stay on Alameda/Junipero/Foothill to your preferred exit. There are many rollers on Alameda and one little bitch of a climb entering Belmont, Strava says 3/4 mile at 8%. Ouch. There aren't a lot of lights, there are some stop signs, nominal traffic but overall reasonable riding. It's not Skyline, it's not Bayway - it's in between. In climbing, in time, in scenery, in sketchy sections.

I took Arastradero to see what the "To Google Time" would be, roughly. I had 2:40 rolling time to Arastradero and Central. Then it sort of fell apart with the two flats.

Moderately recommended. I like it better than Bayway, less than Skyline. Longer than Bayway for Googlers, probably shorter for Palo Altans/Applers, FCHSMB. --murph